Creed
by Just Another Soul
Summary: The twilight had passed, and the dawn had failed to hold her interest. Companion to "Monetary Payment." Eda centric.
1. PART I

**Creed**

Disclaimer: Black Lagoon and its characters © Rei Hiroe

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**CREED: PART I**

Her memory was clouded in a stupor of alcohol.

What was this place called?

The valley of death? The land of the wicked? The devil's domain? _Hell_?

Ah, no. She remembered now.

Roanapur.

_**Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name,**_

Lounging lazily underneath the crucifix, she downed another shot of rum, alone. Yolanda would never have approved of this behavior in the chapel. It was sin to desecrate such a holy place.

The blonde woman spat at the thought.

"Fuck you," she muttered, unsure of whether she was directing the words towards Yolanda or the Son mounted on the cross above her.

She drank another shot.

_**Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.**_

What was she sent here for, again?

Oh, yes. "Monetary payments."

She remembered when she had accepted it casually, blissfully tossing aside any rumors she had heard about Roanapur being a vile place inhabited by the filth of the world. She had scoffed at the thought. She didn't believe a place like that could have ever existed.

She remembered a great shock that had racked her senses when she had discovered that she was wrong.

_**Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,**_

She mimicked the manners of those that resided there. It was vital to her performance. She wasn't a member of the Rip-Off Church. She wasn't a citizen of Roanapur. She wasn't one of the soulless bodies of the walking dead. She was an operative of the CIA masquerading as a damned nun.

The greed... The vanity... The bloodlust... It was an act. It was all just an act.

So she told herself.

_**as we forgive those who trespass against us,**_

Contempt had become a familiar feeling. She had no sympathy for the living dead. They were villains, hideous monsters whose souls were sacrificed to a demonic beast disguised as a city born in blood and shadows.

It worried her whenever she began to feel contempt for herself.

_**and lead us not into temptation,**_

A golden crucifix glowing in the darkness, she struggled to walk upright on a tightrope, acid running through her veins, her heart twisting and turning, threatening to rip itself out of her chest. There were no flames in sight and her skin was unmarked, yet her body was relentlessly tormented with the horrible sensation of burning. Eyes frantic, arms extended and fingers grasping desperately, she reached for the crucifix, her fingertips a hair's width away from touching the shimmering gold.

A noose coiled itself around her neck and ripped her away from the holy symbol, the tightrope transforming into a platform floating in the middle of a sea, a Buddha statue composed of gold and jewels coming into her vision as the crucifix hovered above, the dull glint of city lights in the distance.

The water around her was soon tinted a deep crimson. A massive wave of blood washed away the glorious riches of the Buddha, continually crashing into the figure until it turned into worthless, crumbling stone. The heavenly glow of the crucifix faded away, the gold giving way to severe cracks and shaking violently before it shattered into pieces, falling away into the darkness. The city in the distance began to dissipate into an ominous fog, forming a horrendous beast with seven heads and ten horns, reeking of sulfur and burnt flesh, a dark mist swirling around its gargantuan being. An atrocity displaying a grotesque hide ridden with cuts and sores, a malodorous mix of blood and puss poured from the wounds as mutilated corpses swam about in the open gashes that adorned the monster's flesh. The beast thrashed its heads about wildly, smoke filling the air with every roar, a toxic liquid pouring from its jaws. The beast spat at the Buddha statue, the acidic contents eating away at the eyes.

The beast turned its attention towards her, noting the soft blue glow of her eyes, sordid smiles gracing decayed, razor sharp teeth. A sudden feeling washed over her. Her knees began to bend, as if to kneel down. She immediately dug her nails into her knees to stop them from bending. _No_. She would not bow down to this terrible beast. She couldn't... She _wouldn't_...

The earth shook and the sea of blood raged violently as the beast released a frightening bellow of laughter, the devilish smile widening.

"_Do not resist," _a demonic voice echoed in her head, _"You think you are dwelling in the twilight? Foolish whore, you no longer stand in the midst of day. You lie to yourself like you lie to those who serve as stepping stones for your avarice. Wretched cormorant! Your hands are soaked in the blood of those who fed your bloodlust and greed!"_

Her body began to tremble, blood dripping from where her hands gripped her knees. Her mind remained defiant, determined not to show humility, but an invisible, vice-like grip was filling her heart with an overwhelming desire to surrender to this monster.

The beast opened its jaws, forked tongues twisting and winding out of its mouths as the toxic saliva dribbled into the sea of blood below.

"_You are tainted," _the voice went on, _"You are damned. You have immersed yourself in the night. There is no hope for you. Revolting harlot, accept your fate! You are one of the walking dead!"_

The beast released a mighty roar, flames bursting from its open mouths and dancing around the woman. Red stripes decorated her legs as her knees snapped away from her nails and slammed onto the surface of the platform. The sudden action caused her to fall to her arms, her forehead placed firmly against the platform, bowing before the beast.

Her teeth grinding in anguish, the noose around her neck began to tighten, irritating her skin and crushing her windpipe. Her hands gripped at the noose in an attempt to rip it off of her neck, but it only tightened further. The final ounce of strength left her and the noose sharply snapped her head back, forcing her to behold a slithering forked tongue and a massive set of razor sharp teeth dripping with venom before the beast devoured her whole.

She always awakened from the nightmare with a large exhale, literally taking her breath away. Shaken, she would immediately fumble out of bed and take several uneasy steps towards the nearest mirror. She would always examine her eyes, and there would always be a small glimmer of light. No worries. She still had a soul. She was not one of the monsters that inhabited the city.

After several shots of liquor, she was calm enough to go back to bed.

But before she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she couldn't help but think that the light was dimmer than it had previously been only hours before.

_**but deliver us from evil.**_

The "deal" between the Church and the CIA was done and over with. The monetary payments had fulfilled their price.

The winds whipping about at her golden hair and the gentle spray of the seawater against her skin, the ship sailed away from the valley of death.

She had been waiting for this moment for years. She was finally leaving. She could finally put all of this garbage behind her and move on.

Goodbye, filthy city. Goodbye, wicked land. Goodbye, Roanapur.

No longer did she have to dwell in the world of villains. No longer did she have to play the role of a damned nun. Yet she could not bring herself to take off the magenta shades, nor she could stand to look at the rising sun in the distance.

The twilight had passed, and the dawn had failed to hold her interest.


	2. PART II

**Creed**

Disclaimer: Black Lagoon and its characters © Rei Hiroe

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**CREED: PART II**

She was back on American soil.

She should have been relieved. She should have been content. She should have been _happy_. But all she had really felt within the first moments of coming back to the United States was... out of place. She felt like a foreigner in her own country, disconnected from the land of her origin.

She had tried to shrug off. It was only an effect from being away for so long. No worries, she just needed to get readjusted.

So she told herself.

_**I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.**_

Not very much had changed at the headquarters in Langley while she was gone. It was the same scene she had remembered from so long ago: soft chatters and murmurs carried in the halls, various agents in busy offices going about their assigned tasks or talking amongst themselves during their "breaks." Even that idiot Stan Smith was still completing the chorus of his routine morning song as he stood in front of the entrance and saluted the flag.

As a field agent, she knew she wouldn't be doing much office work. Regardless of what she was assigned, steadfast and dedicated, she fulfilled the task in stride. She had encountered no problems... until one particular incident.

It was a foreign affair somewhere in Eastern Europe and she had been accompanied by several other agents. Some crap that involved interaction with a small syndicate branch, dealing with the more "expendable" members, lives that could afford to be lost if need be. Why her superiors wanted to send her half-way around the world and waste her time with cannon fodder was beyond her. Something about retrieving important documents.

The entire matter bored her, her mind only rendering the time spent in blurs and unfamiliar, _unimportant_ faces. All she could really recall was that the trash that laughably thought of themselves as badass gangsters had tried to pull a fast one on her and other operatives. The entire affair ended in a bloodbath. No lives were lost on team CIA, but the gangsters had been annihilated. Countless bullet-ridden bodies were scattered throughout, pieces of brain and skull matter decorating much of the area, the ground was drenched and slick with blood. The only word that could aptly describe the scene was "carnage."

A grim breeze blew past her, the sky tinted a dreary gray, a suitcase with documents held in one hand, a smoking Glock in the other. Taking a final glance at the corpses, she scoffed with a mocking smirk as she lowered her gun to her side. Jackasses.

As she turned around, she was greeted with the sight of her fellow operatives. Their eyes were wide with terror as their mouths hung agape.

"What?" she drawled with a casual shrug and a coy smirk, "You've never seen a pile of dead bodies before? Well, soak it up while you can, boys. We're finished here. I'm tired and I want to go home. I have a bottle of Ardbeg Providence waiting for me." Her sly voice was laced with a harsh callousness.

If possible, the eyes of the other agents grew wider.

"Jesus Christ, Eda," one of them choked out, "You're a monster."

_**I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.**_

She slowly developed a reputation in the organization as a person one would not have wanted to be partnered with. People grew wary, _uneasy_ around her. Noticing everything from her alcohol addiction to her ill manners and behavior to her attachment to those odd pink sunglasses, everyone had come to notice something _different_ about the woman, something _dark_, something _wicked_.

She would often refuse to acknowledge people's discomfort with her, not minding them in the slightest. If they didn't like her, fuck them. She didn't need anyone's seal of approval.

Despite the confident defiance, she still couldn't quite shake off the disturbing notion of feeling like a foreigner. It had been several years since she had returned from _that wretched place_, plenty of time to readjust. Yet she just didn't feel like she was home. She felt entirely different from the person she had once been so long ago, before the "monetary payments." She sometimes wondered if she was transformed, reborn when she had been living in...

She immediately drowned the thought with a bottle of liquor.

_**He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.**_

Bright red streaks filled the sky as the sun set in the distance, the light gradually descending. A ship cutting its way through the water, she barely noticed the small speckles of water drumming against her skin and the calm wind weaving through her hair, her eyes focused ahead as she stood on the deck. It had taken every ounce of her mental strength to make this trek, to travel this far. It was a personal journey of sorts. She had spent the past several years in a daze, feeling distant and unfamiliar with the world around her.

The valley of death, the land of the wicked, the place of her conception, the land of her origin, the final destination, she both desired and dreaded where this journey was going to end.

As the light disappeared over the horizon, the day lost its grip and gave way to the night. A crumbling Buddha came into her vision, its eyes eaten away and nonexistent, blind. She recognized the glint of city lights in the background.

_**He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.**_

A sudden feeling washed over her. Her strength was slowly drained from her being. Knees shaking violently and her heart instantly filling with a tainted pleasure, she grit her teeth in anguish and took off her sunglasses, dropping them into the water below. Her final ounce of strength leaving her, her knees hit the deck, her forearms and head lowered. A miserable smile gracing her face, she tossed her head back, screaming in lament at the midnight black sky. A small glimmer of light that had once been present faded into nothingness, blue eyes becoming dull and empty. The final remnants of her soul had been consumed.

_**He descended into hell. **_

She was home.

**THE END**

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**A/N:** I _suck_ at symbolism. Waaah...

I don't know what drives me to portray Eda in a tragic light. I really, really don't know.

Well, may I have some idea. It could have something to do with the fact that I think the one thing that separates Eda from everyone else in Roanapur is that she did not enter the city as a villain. She could have entered the city with a proud mentality, and probably still remains loyal to her CIA roots in the present day, but I can't help but think that she's probably become tainted over her time spent in Roanapur. (In Episode 17, even Dutch said that the city rubs off on everyone.) I think Eda must have had _some_ level of innocence before she was sent there. She was a cheerleader in high school for crying out loud! Unless she was one of those mean cheerleaders that picked on the unpopular kids, then I don't know what to think.

I need to stop making these angsty Eda centrics. She's a badass, damn it! The next story I write centering around Eda, it's got to have an upbeat tone. Even if it has to end with her out-drinking a bunch of crazy sailors at Oktoberfest! ... Okay, perhaps I won't go that far, but the story won't be angsty.

This story was originally only going to be one chapter long _and_ a drabble fic, but I got kind of carried away and felt it would be more appropriate to break it into two parts.

The seven headed beast in Eda's dream in "PART I" is a reference to the beast mentioned in Revelation 17, not the one mentioned in Revelation 13. However, instead of being a symbol of Satan (which was one of its original representations in Revelation 17), in this story, I used it as a symbol representing Roanapur. And I admittedly added a couple of my own details to the beast (the toxic spit, the sores and the swimming corpses in the wounds).

The prayer in "PART I" is "The Lord's Prayer" and the prayer in "PART II" is "The Apostles' Creed." I left out the "[For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.]" in "The Lord's Prayer" and the rest of line 5 and the last seven lines in "The Apostles' Creed" on purpose. The prayers were something Eda was reciting to keep her soul, but they are not finished because she is incapable of completing them. The first reason I did this was for symbolic purposes, the second reason I did them was because I do think that Eda's personal religion is genuinely Catholicism. In Volume 2, Chapter 11, Page 151, last panel, she has a tattoo of a crucifix on her arm.

Kudos to the people who spotted the "American Dad!" reference.

Cheers.


End file.
